Still, Racing Heart
by Troid
Summary: All the things Az loves about her, but thinks she herself isn't, couldn't possibly be, ever. And still her heart races. AzxDG unrequited oneshot.


I recently rewatched _Tin Man_ and this story wrote itself the night after. This is my first writing excursion in a style like this, so I can't count on it being very good. This is all new for me! But, anyway, I hope you enjoy reading it all the same, and as I go I'm sure I'll continue to improve. Reviews are always appreciated.

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Back then, when DG would clutch her hand, that made her heart race.

DG is grown up now. She sacrifices so much of her time to rebuild a kingdom she doesn't even fully remember, devoting herself to helping the Outer Zone return to its former beauty.

Az thinks the OZ got more than its fair share of beauty when DG came back to it.

But how much different is she from her childhood? She is still adventurous, always looking over the next hill or into the nearest cave. She is still stubborn, too, with her infuriating yet somehow inarguable way of going right on ahead with what she's doing as if you hadn't said a word. She is also still quick witted and funny and curious and caring and all the other things that Az loves about her.

And she is still naïve.

All the things Az loves about her, but thinks she herself isn't, couldn't possibly be, ever.

Naïve because she never sees past her sister's smiles and reassurances that no, DG, she's okay; Az is always okay, don't worry. Naïve because of the whole angry storm of hurt inside her big sister that she doesn't know exists.

Not dull, though, never ever dull. DG was the brightest child you ever knew and she is the brightest woman you know now, bright as her crystal eyes which Az loves, eyes full of color while Az's are dark.

A racing heart which DG never feels.

DG is naïve, because she's too trusting and even with her sharp intellect she can't see past a lie, or through a façade.

I'm okay, Deege. A smile. Tender, tender with hidden heartbreak.

A broken, racing heart. Az is filled with nothing but pangs of longing, guilt, sadness. Once when she wakes up with a gasp, once with a scream, and DG asks what's wrong, and Az says nothing, a nightmare. The witch, it was about the witch. That's what she says every time it happens, and DG looks at her with worried eyes, her pretty face in the moon's glow while Az's isn't nearly that beautiful, and holds her big sister's hand and sets her heart racing and says comforting words in the dark.

Az hasn't dreamed about the witch, ever. DG banished the witch, saved her, and she hasn't even thought about the witch so much as once since. Her dreams are about her, about DG, about losing her, being separated from her little sister and in the dreams she cries herself to sleep until she awakens with a gasp or a shout and DG says ssh, whispers it's okay—Az is always okay—go back to sleep, I'm here, I'm not going anywhere, I won't let go, ever.

DG is holding Az's hand, and her heart races and her heart aches.

What DG never felt when they were girls, when they would hug; naïve, because she never felt the tremors in her sister's body when they touched or at least never knew what they were. She never heard the hitch in Az's voice that happened only occasionally, that Az tried her hardest to hide and steady the shake in her hands and concentrate, DG, concentrate on the magic lesson—concentrate, Az, don't let your mind drift to how smooth that skin is beneath your own, smoother than you own, and calm your racing heart.

Az is good at hiding things, keeping them silently to herself and cloaked in the dark.

DG's comforts in the dark when she would wake up with a scream and their hands tightly clasped and their hugs and sometimes chaste kisses and DG's smiles are the only way she can bear it. Her little sister is the cause of her torments but also her only solace from them; she wishes she could curl up in DG's arms and forget DG forever, forget herself and forget magic and forget her parents and finally still her racing heart.

But Az will never kill herself, because she cannot do that to DG.

DG is still so much like was as a child, and she will never understand what her big sister is really saying when she says I love you, DG; she will never understand how that love is so fierce and unrequited that it tears her sister apart, every dawn when she wakes up and sees DG a moment of heartbreak; she will never understand that her affections make her sister want to cry with both happiness and pain.

Still, DG has never been one to let something hidden lie.

Az is good at hiding things, but maybe DG is better at finding them.

Maybe one day DG hugs her sister and feels Az's racing heart.

Maybe one day she sees Az looking at her prettier lips, her silkier hair, and tells her, Az, your hair looks so good today.

Maybe thinks, Az, your lips…

Naïve? Well…

What if, one day, DG tells Az how lovely her eyes are.

How she sees their mother's beautiful features in Az's face.

How smooth Az's skin is, as she slides her hand over it, a vaguely puzzled expression on her face—something between pure shock and abject terror on Az's—as she begins to realize, and wonder if, possibly, her sister feels…maybe…

Maybe DG sees more than Az realizes.

And maybe, one night, Az's heart is taught what it truly is to race.


End file.
